stripethree

Now that the MacWorld 2008 keynote, and all the rumor and hype that preceded it has come and gone, I would like to take a look at what was announced and offer pure opinions on each new item. Note that I, like most of the rest of the free world, have no yet land eyes or hands on most of these things since they are not going to available for the next two weeks.

First we have Time Capsule, which is basically an 802.11n Airport Extreme base station with a built in 500GB ($299) or 1TB ($499) drive. It also has hooks to allow Leopard users to backup to a Time Capsule using Time Machine wirelessly and automatically. Pretty slick that Apple is bringing simple backup to the everyday user, good considering it’s something everyone should do, but usually don’t until we’ve already had a catastrophic loss of data. Personally, I don’t have Leopard, and don’t plan on updating anytime soon since both of my Macs are, well, old. I would still love to have one of these, seeing as how only a few months ago I replaced a deceased Airport Express with a new Airport Extreme and I am in the market for an additional external hard drive. The price is more than you would pay for non-Apple wireless router and a comparable external hard drive, but I suppose Apple justifies the premium in the ‘all in one’ functionality and the ease of use factor. Plus, when do Apple products not cost a premium? Is it worth it? I think so. In my experience Apple’s Airport products have been very easy to use, rivaled in that respect only by Linksys, which you could argue wrote the book on easy to configure routers for the average joe. Sure, I can plug an external hard drive into my existing Airport Extreme (or many other routers out there), but that’s another device taking up valuable surge protector space, another USB or Firewire cable, and another ‘box’ on a shelf somewhere. There’s something to be said about the elegance of a smart solution such as this, especially when you already have plenty of cables running amok in your office or under your entertainment center.

Apple also released some software updates to the iPhone ad iPod touch (of which I have neither) including an updated (new to the iPod Touch) Maps application which now allows you to triangulate your current position, provided you have a cellular or wireless internet signal. I like this idea, it’s one thing I do not have on my Sony W810i with Google Maps and I would love to have it. There are many times it would have been very useful. The new software for the iPod Touch will set you back $20 if you already have the hardware, and I’m not sure why Apple is charging for this, since this stuff is already on the iPhone and the iPhone software update is free. Who knows. I’d probably pay the $20 to get the Maps, Mail, Notes, and Weather (Stocks? Meh) on an iPod Touch, if I had one. Nice to know they’ll be there if I get one.

Next was a dual announcement of sorts, AppeTV ‘Take 2’ and iTunes movie rentals. It is not clear if the hardware of the AppeTV has been updated, but the software certainly has, and it breaks free of some of the limiting factors of the first iteration. It is now a stand alone set top box, no longer requiring a computer. Brilliant. Buy and download directly from the iTunes store without having to have a Mac or any computer for that matter. HD content is now supported and the price also dropped, now $329 for the 160GB model. The 40GB model is still around at $229, but really, 40GB? I have more music than that, much less TV shows and movies. Movie rentals have arrived also, with every major studio on board, including limited amounts of their libraries in HD.It’s $2.99 for a library title, $3.99 for a new release, and $1 more for HD content. I don’t rent movies much anymore basically because I think Netflix is too expensive and going to the video store is a pain, but maybe this is the ticket. Once you pay for a movie, you have 30 days to start watching it and 24 hours from when you start watching it to finish it. Follow me? You can view it on your Mac, AppeTV, iPod, or iPhone. I like this, a lot, and it’s going to make it all too easy to rent movies. My only two questions are, why no subscription based service and why only 24 hours to view the movie? Most video places let you have at least 48 on new releases, if not more. I wonder how long that 24 hour limit will last, we’ll see. I am anxious to try this out because I am a little nervous about how fast the movies will download and how the quality of the non-HD movies will translate on my TV. This pair of announcements were probably the most significant, simply because it shows that Apple really wants to go after the digital media market, despite some of the recent setbacks on the music side of the iTunes music store. The first revision of the AppeTV was lacking, and Apple knew it, Steve Jobs even directly said so in the keynote, and now I think they’ve taken a huge step in the right direction.

Lastly was the long rumored, long drooled over ‘super portable ultra light sub compact’ whatever you want to call it notebook, the MacBook Air. I understand what and why this product is what it is but have mixed views. This is certainly not a replacement for anything in the current MacBook line, and for the price point (starting at $1799) it can be easily pointed out that you can have a well (perhaps better, depending on your needs) configured MacBook. The Air does not have a built in optical drive, a built in ethernet card, firewire ports, and only has one USB port. It it built to be wireless, almost completely wireless, to the point that I bet if Apple’s engineers could have figured out how to solar power that sucker through the lovely lightweight aluminum skin or the heat generated by the Core Duo processors, they’d be throwing their MagSafe power adapters at the fridge to see if they’d stick. It’s got an 802.11n Airport card of course, the latest and greater Bluetooth (2.1), 2GB of memory standard, a 13.3” LED backlit display, a light sensitive backlit full size keyboard, and built in iSight. Apple even will let you get a 64GB solid state (flash) drive in this little sucker, for about a grand more that the base price. I like it, and it would be very useful to me since I rarely have my laptop plugged into wired ethernet, I rarely use the optical drive, and really, I rarely use many of the other ports. I think it would fit my needs nicely if I were in the market for a new laptop, but I’m not since my Powerbook keeps on chugging. Even with the trick software that lets an Air borrow another computer’s optical drive wirelessly and the other cool things Apple has to promote the wireless lifestyle (Time Capsule anyone?) I still don’t think this is going to appeal to a whole lot of people, but I could be wrong. I love my 12” Powerbook and I, personally, would have much rather seen a MacBook ‘Mini’ to complete the line, something with a 11.1-12.2” screen with some of the same de-contenting done to the Air at a lesser price. It seems small, but the 12” is so comfortable that even when I go into the Apple store and fiddle with the 13” MacBooks they seem cumbersome. Granted, the Air only weighs 3 lbs, which is 2/3 of what my Powerbook weighs, so maybe I will think differently when I have a chance to see and hold it in person.

Overall, the announcements did not seem to generate that frenzy that the last major announcement, the iPhone did, but that’s a lot of expectation to live up to. Also, the fact that everything announced had been rumored for weeks, even months, and in some cases, leaked at the 11th hour, probably left some people waiting for a surprise ‘one more thing’ on top of all the goodness that Apple delivered. They have simply set the bar for these types of things so very high and people seem more relieved than anything else that the things they were hoping would see the light of day, were revealed. Other than iTunes rentals, I probably won’t buy anything that was announced yesterday simply because I’m not in the market. However if I hit the Apple store in a few weeks and fall all over a MacBook Air, don’t be alarmed if I ‘accidentally’ throw/drop/kick/drop-kick-throw my Powerbook into a wall or something (oops!), but only after a thorough backup!

Last Tuesday I went by the Cingular store and spent near an hour and a half fiddling with two Sony phones and one Treo. I spoke to a rep, got all my questions answered, and got an extra discount card for an ‘event’ for today. I did more research since Tuesday, and was pretty much set on what phone I wanted. I returned today, again fiddled with all three options, and as I expected, there was a clear winner. The Sony Ericsson W810i. I really think the ‘W’ is for ‘Wonderful’.

Maybe it’s just that this phone is so far above any beyond any that I have had before that I am thus far, so amazed. Maybe because I finally have my nerdy little hands on a phone that does everything, so far, that I want it to do. Its probably more feature packed that I need, but I thought, hey, after years of semi-basic phones, I wanted to step up. Thus, the Sony Z525a was out. As nice as it is, it just wasn’t enough. If I got it, I would have ’settled’. Not something I was prepared to do, again. The Treo was excellent, far above and beyond what I needed and wanted, but just not worth the extra money. All that extra cash would go to features I just wouldn’t use enough, wasn’t really looking for, and certainly could live without.

Anyway, back to the wonderfulness of my new phone. First, it just looks hot. I’m sorry, but it does. It’s fantastic. So much better than the Samsung I had, and nearly the same size.

The screen is large, bright, and very easy to read. The only downside I see to the exterior is the surface of the screen and front, as glossy and nice as it looks, shows fingerprints fairly easily. I noticed this when I played with the phone on Tuesday as the display model had numerous prints from previous shoppers, but it’s something I was willing to overlook given the other things it does flawlessly. Some screen covers for a Palm could remedy this is if becomes overly annoying.

The most prominent feature I wanted in my new phone was the ability to sync address book entries and calendars from OS X over Bluetooth. Um, done. And so easy, it’s disgusting. Setup took… 2 minutes? Maybe? No extra software, no extra configuration, nothing. The grin on my face was large and nerdy. Once it was working, I added numbers from my old phone into OS X Address Book and synced them to the phone while it was resting on the dresser in the other room. That, that is the dream, and, wait for it… wait for it… here it is in my little wonderful Sony.

As a wonderful bonus, it syncs my to do list items, has very iCal-esque month, week, and day views for events, and adding events through the phone is about as easy as it can be without having a full keyboard (and yes, they upload to the computer as well!). This is something I don’t intend to do often, but the fact that the capability is there and after trying it a few times, seems fairly easy to use, is even better. I tried the full keyboard on the Treo, and it just wasn’t going to happen, the keys are took small and too closely spaced. My thumbs thanked me for not getting the Treo.

Now, I wasn’t all that interested in music service or a fancy camera in a phone, until I saw and used those features in this phone. A 2-mega-pixel camera is built in with a light, but no flash. That’s fine, the flashes usually suck anyway, and the light seems to work well for indoor, less than ideal lighting. This will not replace my beat up Canon Powershot, but it’s cool to know I can take pics with them and have them be half decent. Did I mention that the phone came with a 512mb memory card that can store said pictures? Yeah, not bad, and I can always buy a larger card should the need arise. Oh, and it does video too, of course.

The other thing that memory card holds? Mp3s. Wonderful, fantastic mp3s. One of this phones big selling points, as far as Sony and Cingular are concerned, are the music/walkman capabilities. Even though it wasn’t something I was really looking for, it wows me. The visual menus and ‘wheel’ used for navigation are vaguely familiar (:cough: iPod :cough:) in a good way. Flattering in its imitation. The sound quality is pretty good. I can definitely see myself using the walkman capability when I’m iPod-less and bored, provided I remembered some headphones. Side note: it appears you have to use Sony’s connector which then yields a standard headphone jack, so we’ll see how often I actually remember said connector. Did I also mention that I can get Internet radio through Cingular’s MEdiaNet and standard FM radio as well? Um yeah, be jealous. More thorough reviews of said features will come.

Now, the icing on the technological cake that makes these previous two features go from ‘wow’ to ‘oh my god I’m falling all over this little candy bar of wonderfulness’ is the Bluetooth file transfer. I’m lounging on the couch with the phone over on the table. I want the picture I took with the phone and at the same time, would like to get an mp3 on board to test the music capabilities with something over than the sample files. Cords? Hahaha, I laugh at you and you sit far away in the other room! I select ‘Browse device’ from the little Bluetooth icon in my OS X toolbar and I can upload and download files to and from the phone without so much as getting off my lazy rear end. I see the phone light up, indicating the file transfer has started and I can’t help but giggle at the technological marvel. This is how things are supposed to be: intuitive and simple. Sure enough, the picture downloaded perfectly and then I uploaded it to show it off here. Next task for another day in the very near future, figure out how to send pictures from the phone to the blog and have them automatically posted. I know it came be done, just you wait. The music file uploaded perfectly as well and even kept all the artist and album information I had entered into iTunes. The sound quality is damn good, I’ll have to listen to the same song back to back of my iPod and the W810i to compare, but I bet it’s pretty close. Transfer speeds over Bluetooth were pretty good as well, it took less than a minute to get a 5mB mp3 uploaded. I’ll have to try some more files to see how the transfer rate and connection holds up, but so far I am again impressed.

I could go on and on and on, and I probably will in the future, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. I have a temporary number for now until my Sprint contract expires on November 2nd. Rest assured two wonderful calls will be made on the 3rd, one to my Cingular rep. to transfer my longstanding number to my new phone and a second to Sprint to cancel their service with glee. Yes, GLEE. Oh, and how can I forget. Sony phone with Cingular: 5 bars in the apartment. The Samsung and Sprint combo: a measly two bars if I’m lucky, and even then, calls tend to drop once they are connected for a minute or two. No such ugliness with the new service so far.

I love when things just *work* they way they are supposed too. This makes for a happy Jeff.

Fast forward to November 2. A glorious day when once and for all I am freed from the chains of Sprint’s deadly ‘Advantage Agreement’ and finally, finally can emerge from the clutches of awful service, dropped calls, subpar networks, and mediocre phone selection.

The front running replacements are either the Verizon or Cingular, with the debate mostly coming down to the type of phone I want. Bluetooth is a must, but none of this crippled business, I want something that works with iSync and can give me access ot my calendar. Internet would be hot, but not necessary. Camera, eh, whatever. Music service, no, thanks. That seems like a short list, but it’s more limiting than you think.

I think the Sony Ericsson T630 looks like the phone that’ll do it for me. Great looking phone and it has all the functions I’m looking for; syncs with OS X over Bluetooth, has the calendar functions, everything. I won’t get a chance to play with it first, since it’s not really availalbe here, I’ll have to get an unlocked version from overseas. That’s really the only downside, and would pretty much put the ball in Cingular’s court.

The Blackberry 7130e is my other option so far, ranking higher on the cool stuff scale but without the ability to sync natively to OSX. There’s reliable software out there, but it still can’t do it over Bluetooth, which really cuts down on it’s appeal. Oh well.

There’s still two months, still time for Apple themselves to astonish me (and many others) and unveil the long rumored iPhone which would surely do all I want in a phone and probably more, maybe even with the functions on an iPod built in. Onc can only dream, and count the days until I can drop Sprint like third period French.